We Are The Music While It Lasts
by SongbirdNoodles
Summary: 10 songs meme for The West Wing. Drabbles for Josh/Donna, CJ/Danny, Toby/Andi CJ/Toby ! and Sam/Mallory. I'm sure those of you thus inclined will also find Toby/Sam and Josh/Sam overtones in the gen-ones ;


**one: accidentally like a martyr (warren zevon) - josh/donna**

_we made mad love, shadow love, random love and abandoned love_

_accidentally like a martyr_

_the hurt gets worse, and the heart gets harder_

"You miss her," CJ accuses on the phone late at nigh, voice sounding farther away than the 2000 miles from Iowa to DC, when he called about the DNC fundraiser and they somehow ended up talking about Donna of all things. "You miss her, and I know she misses you."

"She said that?" His voice, too quick, too hopeful, and CJ flinches on the other end of the line and tells him that she didn't have to. "Save it, Claudia Jean," he mutters. "She quit, she's working for Russel now, end of story. I'm done."

"Suit yourself," CJ sighs. "Moron."

Even later, he lies in bed, wide awake, until he can't stand it anymore, and his hand finds his and all the sees is Donna the way she used to sneak into his dreams before even that became forbidden, and when he spills into his hand he groans her name into the pillows. His only hope is that the walls of the Quality Inn at Cedar Rapids keep their secrets.

two: cha-cha-cha auf'm dach- wise guys - cj/danny

"Can't sleep?" CJ asks, when, after not finding him in bed, she walks onto their porch on a hot summer night, and finds Danny sitting on the porchswing with a book.

"Too damn hot," Danny grumbles, all New England incredudilty and Chicago disbelief as he stares up at the heavy moon of a California summer night. "She asleep?"

"For now," CJ sighs, placing the baby monitor onto the floor and curling next to him, fingers making a slow but steady progress down his chest.

Danny laughs, languidly. "Don't even think about it. Way too hot. Sorry."

"Fine," CJ struts out her lower lip, and he laughs, placing a kiss on her cheek. Their neighbors are throwing a party, strains of music fill the hot air.

Danny takes her hand in his. "You wanna dance?"

**three: big yellow taxi (counting crows cover) - toby/andi**

_don't it always seem to go_

_that you don't know what you got till it's gone?_

"Andi!" Toby yells, furiously, following a streak of red hair through the stairway of their appartment building onto a busy Manhattan streak."Andrea!" He runs through the lobby and catches her hailing a cab at the curb. February sleet falls thick and fast and her hair turns wet and white as she stops one and attempts to get in before her stops her. "We were in the middle of a discussion!"

"No," Andi snaps back, livid, "we were in the middle of you yelling at me and I was getting incredibly sick of that, so I'm going to leave."

"Where are you going?" He demans.

Andi sighs as she gives the cabbie directions. "What do you think?"

"An insane asylum?"

"I'm going to drop off our divorce papers," she replies, icily, and before he gets a chance to respond she's gotten in the cab and driven away, and he just stands there, as the cold New York sleet soaks through the woollen sweater she gave him for Christmas last year.

**four: agony (into the woods) - josh, sam, toby**

"What is it with the women in this place?" Sam asks nobody in particular as he sips his guiniss one night at the Hawk and Dove. "Ainsley quit. Yeah. She quit. A job at the White House. Who the hell does that?"

"Amy would," Josh snorts into his beer. "God."

"I warned you about her," Toby points out, draining his scotch.

"Still," Josh complains, rubbing his temples. "Who knew this was so much work?"

"I did."

"You're the divorced one."

"And hot for the poet."

"Thank you, Sam."

"Ya'll want another round?" Chelsea, their favorite waitress, curvy and southern with curly red hair and a drawl that turns all three of them into drooling teenagers, leans into their booth.

"Please," Toby says, and the night rolls on.

**five: la camisa negra (juanes) - sam/mallory**

"You do realize this guy is singing about having a black shirt, right?" Sam asks as he shakes his head at Mallory shimmying through his LA loft after having finally found a radio station she approves of.

"Who cares?" Mallory laughs. "He's singing it in Spanish, which makes it, you know. Hot."

"Really?" Sam asks, suddenly interested as he crosses the room and traps her in his arms. "We so shouldn't be here."

Mallory smirks as she slips her engagement ring off her finger and into her pocket before running her hands over his chest. "Do you care?"

Yes, Sam thinks, and then kisses her.

**six: true colors remix (save the last dance ost) - sam and josh**

"Could you have a worse taste in music?" Sam smirks as Josh delightedly turns up the radio when "True Colors" comes on.

Josh ignores him, tapping his fingers along to the cheezy seventies beat on the steering wheel. Outside, a pale white landscape covered in snow zooms by under an equally white sky. "Did we miss the exit?"

"Nope," Sam says.

"You didn't even check the map."

"That's 'cause I didn't have too," Sam informs him. "Manchester's the next exit. I promise. I have excellent navigational skills."

"Kay," Josh shrugs. "Hey, how does Lisa feel about you being, you know, here?"

"Josh?"

"We missed the exit, didn't we?"

"We may have."

**seven: hey jude (the beatles) - cj/toby**

_Hey Jude don't make it bad_

_Take a sad song and make it better_

_The minute you let her under your skin_

_Then you begin to make it better_

"What am I going to tell them?" CJ practically shrieks. "There's no spin on this. This is just bad. Really bad." It's their first month in office, and new unemployment figures have just come out, and they're... not that good."

"You'll figure it out," Toby shrugs. "You're getting quite good at this."

"Quite good?" CJ seethes. "For your information, Tobus, I am excellent at this, and even despite that there's no way for me to make this good."

"You shouldn't put yourself down like that," he says, calmly, reaching for the paper. "You want some advice?'"

"I really do."

"Take a sad song, and make it better."

"You're quoting The Beatles at me? That's the best you can do?"

"I have full confidence in you."

"We'll, you're the only one."

Later, when she steps behind the podium, her head still buzzes. You got to let them under your skin. So, she smiles a lot and flirts a lot and calls on Danny Concannon alot and jokes around, and somehow, that bizarrely, disconcertingly, does the trick.

"Told you you could do it," Toby tells her later, handing her a bottle of wine.

"What's this for?"

"For being excellent," Toby shrugs, and CJ laughs and hugs the bottle close to her chest when he isn't looking.

**eight: the steward of gondor (billy boyd - lord of the rings: return of the king ost) - will, sam**

_home is behind, the world ahead_

_all shall fade, all shall fade_

"Welcome back," Will says. "Wow, you brought a lot of stuff this time."

Sam shrugs, deposing the overflowing duffle in his office. "I decided to make it permanent. You know, stay here 'till the election."

"Yeah." Will looks away. He's sick of apologizing for winning, frankly, still, watching Sam whom he really doesn't know very well take a framed picture of the President's senior staff tenderly out of his duffle and prop it up on his desk gives him a guilty stab all over again.

**nine: double agent (amanda marshall) - kate/will**

_What do you see when you see me?_

_You see my long blonde hair and the particular way_

_That my lips are shaped_

"I'm not a spy," Kate blurts out one night in January, and Will, who has been dozing off, opens his eyes to find her sitting up in his bed, wearing his boxers and a ratty International School of Brussels sweatshirt.

"Did you say something?" He yawns, rolling over.

"I'm not a spy. And I'm not wonderwoman and I don't own a gun and I'm not Carmen freaking Sandiego or a Bond girl or whatever it is you think I am."

Will just stares. "Did I say...?"

She falters. "I just... needed you to know that. Oh, god." She buries her face in his stomach. "I'm such a spazz," she groans out, appaled, voice muffled by his comforter.

Will just laughs, his fingers in her hair and finding the sensitive spot on the back of her neck, and she turns to face him, eyes wide, before their lips collide.

**ten: get'cha head in the game (high school musical ost) - toby, sam**

"SAM!" Toby roars. "Where the hell is foreign policy section?"

"It's right here," Sam assures.

"Where?"

"You know." Sam makes a vague gesture. "In my hand."

"You haven't WRITTEN IT YET?" Outside, Donna and Ginger, returning from lunch, quickly scuttle off at the sound of a full-blown Ziegler explosion. "Sam, the inauguration is in twenty-four days. We do not have time for you to freak out and spazz out and keep the foreign policy section in your HEAD."

Sam flees, and returns an hour later with a stack of papers and a carton box. "Here's the foreign policy section."

Toby points an accusatory finger at the box. "What's that?"

"I got you some pie."


End file.
